Grail Prince

by Nancy McKenzie

  Through a fog of pain Galahad saw the long fingers around his mother’s throat, heard again the growled threat.

  “Do you hear me? Answer!”

  “Yes.”

  “Lie here until I return with the horses.” He paused a long time. When he spoke at last his voice was low and quiet. “This is Aidan’s doing. Aidan’s and Elaine’s. He filled your heart with hate. She taught you that carnal love was no more than a weapon. God forgive her, she believed it herself. But this you have forgotten in your pride: ‘Judge not, lest ye be judged.’ May God help me. I cannot tell Arthur.”

  By the time they met the others at the lakeside Galahad’s face was so swollen he could barely see. Every step his horse took sent waves of nauseating pain through his head. His cracked and bloody lips made drinking torture and speech impossible. He had lost three teeth, his jaw throbbed, his ear had been deeply cut by Lancelot’s ring, and his nose still seeped blood. But he sat as tall on his horse as he could manage, kept his chin up, and said nothing. Everyone assumed he had gotten the better of a dirty fight and honored him accordingly. Lancelot did not enlighten them. So Galahad sat still and endured their praises and their warm congratulations, while they told of their adventures and displayed the weapons and booty they had won.

  Arthur and Mordred had killed the giant Grile. They returned with ten head of cattle, a store of weapons, and the giant’s head in a bloody sack to give to Hoel. Mordred told the story of the great battle: the monster felled, nearly killing him, and Arthur saving him at the last minute with a brilliant and daring attack. Arthur smiled to hear it retold, and made light of his own prowess. Together they all started back along the forest track.

  No one seemed to notice anything amiss. Their thoughts were on their victory and the celebrations that lay ahead. Only Mordred, whose black eyes missed nothing, watched Galahad with more than curiosity. As the light began to fail he rode up next to the silent boy and looked him over carefully.

  “You’d best see a physician when we get to Kerrec. That’s a nasty cut on your ear.” Galahad did not reply. “Fought foul, did he?” Galahad stared hard at the space between his horse’s ears. Mordred smiled slowly and lowered his voice. “ ‘A fool despiseth his father’s instruction: but he that regardeth reproof is prudent.’ ” With a mock salute he turned his horse away.

  Galahad stared openmouthed at his retreating back. The pagan Mordred spouting Scripture! Though he wept with the pain it cost him, he turned his head, pursed his lips, and spat.

  34

  THE TREASURE OF MAXIMUS

  Percival lifted the hot cloth from Galahad’s ear and gently patted the bruised flesh. “There. That’s better. Sit still a moment longer. The nard’s right here.” With great care he applied the soothing balm and then sat back, cleaning his fingers on the cloth. “I love the smell of spikenard. The ear is healing well; Gaius says there won’t be much of a scar. You’re lucky your nose is still straight and the gap in your teeth won’t show in a smile. Gaius said you’ll look the same as you did before when the bruising heals.”

  Galahad shrugged. “It doesn’t matter what I look like.”

  “So you say. Yet someday you’ll be glad of the face you’ve got.” Galahad did not respond and Percival’s smile faded. “Why don’t you just tell me what’s the matter, cousin? You’ve not been yourself these last ten days. What happened on that journey? That must have been some fight! Did you know you are honored all over camp? Even the Franks know your name.” Galahad shifted uncomfortably. “Is it true he was a trained soldier, twice your size? And that after you disarmed him, he fought foul? King Hoel’s thrilled to have the giant’s head. He’s got it stuck on a pole outside his window and is so delighted he almost forgets to grieve. Just think, Galahad, to have killed your first man, in single combat, and at fourteen! Surely the High King must let you in the army now! I can’t imagine what you’re so glum about.”

  “I hope you don’t go around telling these tales to everyone. Why can’t you learn to keep your mouth shut?”

  “Oh, all right, don’t tell me! It’s probably not worth knowing, anyway. Prince Mordred rubbed you the wrong way again, I’ll bet. That’s all.”

  “Never mind it, Percival. Talk of something else.”

  “Why is Lancelot so angry? He’s not said a word to you, and only nods to me, since you got back.”

  “I said, talk of something else.”

  Percival frowned. “I thought I was. Well, tell me what tonight’s meeting is about, then. Why does King Arthur want to see you and Lancelot alone? And why does Prince Mordred look at you so queerly?”

  Galahad scowled. “That abomination! Don’t speak his name to me again.”

  “You really ought to try to get along with him, cousin. He’s—”

  “He’s unclean. He’s born of incest. His mother was Arthur’s sister.”

  “His birth is not his fault.”

  “His birth damns him. He has no right to inherit Britain. I have promised Bishop Landrum I will kill him if he tries.”

  Percival gasped. “You said that before, but I didn’t believe you. You can’t, Galahad. Arthur has a right to choose his heir.”

  “Not Mordred. Arthur sinned when he begot Mordred. It’s his own doing his son is unfit to be his heir.”

  “Is that so?” a deep voice behind them asked. They whirled and saw Mordred, cloaked in black, standing at the entrance to their tent. “What gives you the right to pronounce judgment upon me? You, whose father sinned when he begot you.”

  Galahad swallowed hard.

  Percival fell to one knee, shaking. “My lord! Please forgive us! He didn’t mean it!”

  “I think he did.” It was impossible to read Mordred’s face. His black eyes gave nothing back. “Since when is my begetting any concern of yours, Galahad of Lanascol? Since our beloved bishop took you under his wing? The man who has fathered more bastards than the kings of Britain combined?” He straightened slowly and came toward the quaking boys.

  “You shame your father, Galahad. And mine, who has been generous to you beyond the call of friendship. I know you call me ‘abomination’ behind my back. Tell me, princeling, what kind of God is it you worship who damns men for things beyond their power, like an accident of birth? This is not the God my father worships. Yet you call Him by the same name.” He paused. Galahad, still standing, trembled visibly. “So you plot to kill me, do you? Laughable as it sounds, I believe you would try.”

  “I will kill you if you try to take Arthur’s crown.”

  Nothing moved in Mordred’s face, but both boys suddenly backed a pace.

  “You can try,” Mordred said softly, “if you live that long.” He stepped closer. His lips were inches from Galahad’s ear. “I don’t know who you think you are, who were conceived out of wedlock and by guile, as one woman’s vengeance on another. What gives you, or any man, the right to stand in judgment over me? Is it your precious destiny that makes you so superior?” His fingers snapped. “That for your destiny! A witch’s drugged vision and a selfish woman’s bid for power, that’s all your precious destiny amounts to!” The black eyes glittered. “I await the day you challenge me, boy. The pain your death would bring to Lancelot and Arthur would not stop me. That weapon may work against the Queen—may the gods bless her sweet, forgiving soul—but it will not work against me.” He struck his chest, once, with his fist. “My soul is iron. Forged in a fierce fire. And your vengeful God does not frighten me. What are you, Galahad of Lanascol, but a blight upon the name of Britain? You do nothing to bring her glory and you shame the men who would. You are a stain upon her honor she would be better off without.” He looked Galahad over and lifted an eyebrow. “When you are ready, princeling, try me. I will be waiting.”

  He turned away. Suddenly Galahad found his voice. “If you want to kill me, do it now! If you dare. Or are you a coward, too?”

  Mordred turned back and slowly smiled. “Hardly. But until you attack me I have no cause. I am Arthur’s son, not
Elaine’s.” He paused. “But this I will do: I will deny you the honor you most desire. You will never serve in my father’s army. Nor in mine. I will see to that.” He walked up to Galahad and placed both his hands firmly on the boy’s shoulders. “Here is a prophecy for you: You will go your own way. Alone. Unwanted. Neither leading nor following. Belonging nowhere. The honor of your house will die with your father, who deserves a better son than you.”

  The hands fell from Galahad’s shoulders. Mordred paused. “I came to tell you that the lamps are lighting and it is time to go to the High King.” With that, he turned on his heel and walked out.

  “My God!” Percival said under his breath when he dared to break the silence. “My God in Heaven! He’s just about the most powerful man in Britain, and you have made him your mortal enemy!”

  A thousand eyes stared at him as Galahad walked slowly toward the High King’s tent. He forced his shoulders back and his chin up. Gabral and Bryddon stood, not at their customary posts, but a full ten paces from the entrance. Galahad knew what that meant—a private conference, and one of consequence. Guards had been posted out of earshot to keep everyone away.

  Varric brought him to the inner chamber, where Arthur stood, hands clasped behind his back, beside a triple-flamed lamp. There were no skins upon the beaten floor, no stools, no fire, no warmed wine.

  “Galahad.” The High King nodded curtly as Galahad bent his knee.

  “My lord Arthur.”

  “You’re looking better.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “I am glad of that.”

  But he did not sound glad. In the shadows behind the High King, Galahad recognized Mordred’s dark face. His palms began to sweat. The skins parted; Lancelot came in and knelt before the King.

  “My lord Arthur.”

  “Lancelot.” The King’s glance warmed as he looked at Lancelot, but still he did not smile. Lancelot, too, seemed strained and ill at ease. There were dark shadows under his eyes and he looked as if he hadn’t slept in weeks.

  “Now that we are all gathered,” Arthur said grimly, “I will tell you why I have summoned you here.” He looked first at Lancelot and then at Galahad, who trembled under that piercing gaze. “There is something of importance you are keeping from me. Both of you. One has only to look at you to know this.” He paused. “If it were a small thing that need not concern me it would have blown over by now. But it has not. I cannot risk the health of my commanders, nor of any who serve me, with the Roman army approaching and the Burgundians at the Frankish border. Tonight you will tell me what it is.”

  Neither of them stirred. Arthur turned to Lancelot. “I have spoken to the physician. He confirms what I suspected when I saw you at the lakeside. The blow that Galahad took felled him and would have meant his death had it been struck by his opponent.”

  Lancelot drew a deep breath. “You are right, my lord. I struck him.”

  Something moved in Arthur’s eyes, but he stood very still. “Why?”

  Lancelot looked away. “Sir, I cannot tell you. I beg you not to ask me. It were better not spoken aloud. It were better not known.”

  “Nevertheless, I command you to tell me.”

  Lancelot threw him a desperate look and his voice grew pleading. “Arthur, I beg you! Let it die. Punish me as you will, but let it pass.”

  But the High King was not moved. His face looked carved in stone. “You will tell me,” he said slowly and distinctly, “what is between you. Else neither of you has a future in my service.”

  Lancelot drew a long breath and stared hard at the floor. “Very well,” he said flatly. “It is my fault, from the beginning. The boy has grown up without a father, and that is my doing.”

  “I will be the judge of that,” Arthur said sharply. “Just tell me what happened.”

  “We met two men; I followed one and left Galahad to take the other. I judged the man was well within his range of skill. In this I was right; he disarmed the blackguard without a scratch to his person. But when I returned . . . I found . . . the boy was raving, shouting Scripture—I thought he had gone mad. He insulted me, he . . . my lord, he insulted . . . others, he said terrible things. He did not mean them; he spoke only to wound me—I think the finding of the young princess turned his wits, else he would never have cut the . . . done what he did.”

  “Ah.” Arthur watched Lancelot unmoving. “Now we are coming to it. What did he do?”

  Lancelot met his eyes, pleading, but could not bring himself to speak.

  Arthur turned on Galahad. “You tell me.”

  Galahad backed a step. “I gelded the man who raped her. I cut off his fornicating manhood.” The defiant words fell loudly into silence; all three men stared. Galahad’s voice began to tremble. “Quick death was too good for him. I did no more to him than he had done to her.”

  Not one of them moved. The lamp flames threw their shadows giant against the tent cloth, where they quivered and danced behind the rooted men. At last Arthur spoke. “Who killed him?”

  “I did,” Lancelot said flatly.

  Arthur nodded. “Thank you for it. But the blow you struck your son was not to bring him to his senses. It was more than that.”

  “Yes,” Lancelot admitted unhappily. “I struck him in anger. I hit him as hard as I could.”

  “Tell me why.”

  “My lord, please—”

  “It’s no good, Lancelot. You cannot spare me. Your very reluctance tells me all but the details.”

  Lancelot shook his head.

  “Lancelot.”

  “I cannot.”

  Galahad gulped as the King turned toward him. “Can you tell me, Galahad?”

  “Y⸍yes, my lord.”

  Arthur’s cool eyes met his. “Then do it.”

  “He struck me because I accused him of . . . wrongdoing. I told him he was damned. I told him why.”

  “Tell me exactly what you said.”

  “Arthur,” Lancelot begged, “don’t ask him for it. Please.”

  “You will be silent,” the King snapped. “Speak, Galahad.”

  Galahad’s voice shook as the words were forced from his lips by the King’s commanding eyes. “He has always known that the sins of the flesh would be his undoing. He has let a woman corrupt his soul. ‘Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned?’ For her, he betrayed my mother! And he betrayed you, my lord! It is no more than everyone already knows. In his weakness he has betrayed us all! My mother wept, wept and suffered, and I couldn’t help her—I couldn’t keep him away! My mother hated the whore of—”

  “No!” Lancelot cried. “Don’t, Galahad!”

  “Silence!” Arthur roared. He nodded curtly to Galahad. “Go on.”

  Galahad swallowed in a dry throat. “My lord, he struck me because I called her whore.”

  “Be still!” Lancelot choked. “God in Heaven, have you no thought for the King? How can you do it?”

  Arthur’s eyes blazed. “Am I to understand you accused your father of whoring?” Galahad nodded, lowering his eyes to evade that awful stare. “Never in his life.” Arthur paused. “With whom?” Galahad did not answer. “Who is it you call a whore, boy? Speak up. I command you.”

  But Galahad’s bowels had turned to water and it was all he could do to stay on his feet. In all the years he had served Arthur he had never known how men could fear him. Suddenly he understood it. The King took a step toward him, but Lancelot reached out and touched his arm.

  “Don’t, Arthur. I will tell you.” Lancelot spoke lifelessly. “He’s never understood. Like so many others. He meant Gwen. He started with the whore of Babylon, but at the end, he said her name.”

  Arthur stopped. His voice, when it came, was unrecognizable. “Guinevere!”

  “He said it to revenge himself upon me, for the years of neglect he has suffered at my hands. But that was why I hit him.” Arthur’s face was gray. Lancelot slid to his knees. “I blame myself for the grief I have brought upon you. My lord, fo
rgive him. He’s only a boy; his teachers have all been priests; his world is free of shadows. My dear lord, remember what it was like to be his age.”

  Arthur shook himself and abruptly turned away. He took three quick strides toward the dark tent wall, waited, and took three slow strides back.

  “Lancelot, I hold you blameless. You have behaved throughout with honor. I thank you for your honesty and for your defense of her good name. Return to your command and leave the boy with me. Mordred, you, too, may go. I bind you both to silence. Not a word of this leaves this tent.”

  When they were alone, Arthur called for wine and a pair of stools. Varric hurried to obey. From his stool Galahad watched nervously as the High King clasped his hands behind his back and began to pace.

  Since that first day in Camelot, long ago, Galahad had always thought of Guinevere as Lancelot’s illicit passion. She was the wicked woman who had stolen his father’s love and ruined his mother’s life. And lately he had regarded her as the personification of carnal desire which corrupted men. He had never even considered that the King himself might be more than the woman’s victim. But he considered it now. Why would Arthur keep a childless queen? It was his right, even his duty, to put her aside. And if she had been raped by his enemy . . . no one would keep her but a man who loved her beyond all reason. Now he knew for certain the truth of the King’s affection. A moment ago Arthur’s face had looked like death.

  Arthur waited until Varric had served the wine and drawn the tent flap closed behind him. Then he seated himself across from Galahad. His eyes were dark pits in a face pinched white.

  “Galahad, had you been a grown man, had you been anyone but Lancelot’s son, you would be dead now. No one calls my wife a whore to my face and lives. Do you understand this?”

  “Yes, my lord. I . . . I’m sorry.”

  “I hope you are. But I fear you are only sorry that you spoke it in my hearing. In your heart you believe it.”

  Galahad gulped.

  Arthur gazed directly at him. “It isn’t true, son.” He made an effort to soften his voice. “Since first she came to Camelot twenty years ago, a girl of fifteen, knowing nothing of the world, forced to leave her family and marry a man she had never even seen, people have talked about Guinevere. That is only human, I suppose, but it is a trial to bear. She was a frightened child of astounding beauty thrust into a prominence she had never wanted, even in her dreams. Envy and jealousy dog her like shadows. But because her closest friend in all the world was my friend also, rumors started. You cannot kill a rumor. You can only let it die. This one has not died.”